Last year I compared my fitness to a 2-year-old child, and Happy Exhaustion continues to age like a little human.

Know how kids are at 3?

Bossy. Freshly assertive. “Put me down! I’m big enough!”

Similarly, this year Miss Fancy Pants Happy Exhaustion got a bit too big for her britches. Instead of applying the established mechanics of Walk Then Run, she tried to swagger. “I got this. No problem. I can mess around with the machine. I’m not a baby anymore.”

Predictably, I fell flat on my 3-year-old face.

My fitness went running into the street after a ball, and my grown ass maternal side had to chase her down and bring her back to safety.

Several months ago, in full Rambunctious Preschooler Mode, I declared my intent to try new things. I was going to shake it up. I was bored with Tried & True.

I didn’t want my peanut butter and jelly, I wanted what the grown-ups were having.

I asked for suggestions and set off to scale new mountains. I was confident that I could do whatever struck my fancy without missing a beat.

I did a vegan challenge, a sleep challenge, a crazy hydration challenge, and I played with fasting. I did it all with an eye to blog posts featuring results and lessons learned.

But those posts were never written. Not yet, at least. I hope to get them out of my system and into the script one of these days, but they’re still too dark and stormy to inspire writing.

5 thoughts on “Happy THIRD Anniversary, Happy Exhaustion!”

I was reading all your blogs and stories and they are SO inspiring. I was fit my entire life until I had my son and now I weigh 240 pounds. I’m a size 18 and feel bigger than ever. I want to get healthy and have started the gym part but I’m not really sure how to start the food part. Do you have any advice on recipes and what to eat? It seems like dieting or healthy eating is so expensive and hard.

Hi, Kaitlynn! I’m getting ready to roll out a recipe series for the blog which I hope you’ll like. In the meantime, focus on eliminating as much sugar as possible (step one: don’t drink your sugars!) and then clean up all of the processed foods. It means more meal prep and cooking for yourself, but the payoff is huge. Hope this helps!

Hi, April! Thank you so much for coming by, and for your question. I didn’t have any skin removal surgery, but I will always have my tiger stripes. Making peace with them was a big part of my journey.
Whether or not your skin will sag depends entirely on the levels of collagen and elastin in your DNA. On one end of the spectrum are the Victoria’s Secret models who have had babies and their skin looks like it never stretched in the first place. It’s not just because they’re thin – it’s because they have tight skin genes. On the other end of the spectrum are the people whose skin just isn’t programmed that way. They don’t bounce back. These are the people whose images are probably in your mind when you think of the excesses you hope to avoid. If that’s where you land, then skin removal is always an option.
I hope you’ll focus on the health and let the image take care of itself! If you really do have 100 lbs to lose, your health improvements *WHEN, not IF* you attain your goal will be worth any cosmetic issues down the line.
Get it, girl! Hope you’ll come back around and keep me posted on your progress!

Dear Katey, I’m not sure if you’ll see this, but I feel sick. I read your blog post from 2012 about your daughter, and it made me sad. My daughter is getting ready to turn 17. She is my best friend, and I think I am responsible for her being heavy. I don’t want to sound like I’m exaggerating, but my daughter has heard, watched, and witnessed, not only about my own dieting problems, but also about my terrible eating habits and my aversion to quitting. Your words resonated with me about how she watches and emulates everthing I do, and I’m TERRIFIED. She will be away to college in a year, and this is the only chance I have left to show her the right path. Because I’m weak, she’s weak. Because I’m lazy, she’s lazy. Because I love sweets, she loves sweets. I’ve tried to encourage better habits, but they’ll never work if she keeps seeing me be weak. She even copies my whining about how I try and try and nothing works. The truth is, I don’t try hard enough, and deep down I know it. I expect the quick fix, and so does she. BUT, I know if I succeed, she will see that, and she will want that too. This is my motivation. For her to go off to college knowing what is right and wrong about diet and exercise. I want her to have the tools because I won’t be there to influence her.:( I’ve tried so hard to keep her girl self-esteem intact, and I think I have succeeded in that. She doesn’t have body shame, and that is a good thing, but she is very unhealthy (almost 240lbs.). She needs me to succeed! I need me to succeed! Scared to begin, scared to fail. I feel like I’ve been here many, many times before and failed everytime. What is the secret to sticking with it? I need to know because I can’t fail again. It’s time to be seriously serious. Help us!